The present invention relates to a dispensing machine for tag pins made of a synthetic resin which individually comprise a filament, a head and a crossbar formed at one and the other ends of the filament and which in use are applied and attached one at a time by the machine to various items of merchandise. More specifically, the tag-pin dispensing machine to which the invention pertains comprises a feeder unit removably icorporated in its machine body for individually successively servering a plurality of tag pins connected with their crossbars to one another to altogether form an integral assembly, and delivering the crossbar of each severed tag pin to the position corresponding within the machine to the open rear end of a hollow needle mounted at a front end portion of the machine body.
With reference to the U.S. Pat. No. 3,103,666 for example, this makes an earliest disclosure of tag pins and tag-pin dispensing machines of the type above referred to, and subsequent to such patent, there have been a number of patents and utility model registrations made covering the tag pins and their dispensing machines, which are today very widely utilized in trades particularly of fabrics and fabric made-up goods.
Tag pins in reference are of an extremely small size and normally are produced in the form of an integral tag-pin assembly comprising 35 to 50 tag pins or, in some cases, 75 to 100 or more tag pins. With tag pins today widely put for use, they have a thickness, a width and a length of their heads of 0.8 to 1.0 mm, 3 to 5 mm and 8 to 11 mm respectively, and a diameter and a length of their crossbars of 0.3 to 1.0 mm and 8 to 11 mm respectively, the length of their filaments being 7.0 to 125.0 mm.
Then, for example in the case of such tag pins as having 1.0 mm for the diameter of the crossbar, they are altogether connected through their respective connecting necks to a common runner bar with interspaces corresponding to the diameter of their crossbars, namely 1.0 mm, and are arranged in the form of an integral assembly, like teeth in a comb.
The tag-pin dispensing machine by which to sever tag pins one by one from such tag-pin assembly and apply them to merchandise is provided with a feeding mechanism for cutting individual tag pins at their respective connecting necks and delivering them into a hollow needle mounted in a nose end portion of the machine.
In conventional machines, the feeding mechanism is composed of such as a gear adapted to engage the connecting necks of tag pins, a ratchet to check reverse rotation of the gear, a lever for intermittently driving the gear for rotation, a cam member for driving the lever, and so forth. While the dispensing machine comprises a machine body structured by a first and a second segments, the above recited members of the feeding mechanism, namely the gear, ratchet, lever, cam and so forth, are arranged at their respective one end or side on a first one of the two machine body segments and supported at their respective other end or side by a plate member having a number of holes for therein receiving the shaft for the gear, fixing screws and so forth, and the first and the second machine body segments are aligned with each other and securely assembled together by means of screws.
The tag-pin dispensing machine is relatively complex in structure and includes precisely arranged mechanisms, so that if the machine is once disassembled in cases of troubles for example with the feeding mechanism, it is difficult for persons without a particular knowledge and/or skill to reassemble the machine in a manner of accurately reproducing original relative positions of various machine members.
Today, an enormous number of tag-pin dispensing machines has been distributed in various countries of the world, and it virtually is impracticable for the manufacturers of the machines to recollect all impaired or damaged machines and perform repair thereof.
Difficulties are indicated also in connection with tag-pin assemblies of conventional designs: In conventional tag-pin assemblies, the interspace with which the prescribed number of tag pins are formed on a runner bar in a comb-like structure is so great that the tag pins of an assembly loaded on the machine easily tend to undergo tangling mutually with their heads. Not only that, but also the tag-pin assemblies require largely spaceful containers for packaging. Moreover, the mold for the manufacture of the tag-pin assembly has to be relatively great in size, and the temperature control for the mold is likely to involve a difficulty.
In order to obviate such various difficulties from the standpoint of manufacture and that of handling of tag-pin assemblies, there have of late been developed such tag-pin assemblies with which the space between member tag pins is reduced and crossbars are very closely arranged to one another or such ones in which the crossbars are mutually so closely arranged that they are almost in contact with one another.
Then, however, another difficulty and yet an essential one has arisen: The existing tag-pin dispensing machines make use of such a feeding mechanism which feeds tag pins by means of a gear to engage connecting necks which join tag pins to a runner bar, so that they can no longer feed tag pins of such a tag-pin assembly which is completely devoid of the connecting neck or runner bar or which includes almost no space between member tag pins.